deep-set eyes, he presided, above the bluefish flames of a
log fire.

Father and son found some difficulty in beginning.

Each of those two felt as though he were in the presence of someone
else's very near relation. They had, in fact, seen extremely little of
each other, and not seen that little long.

Lord Valleys uttered the first remark:

"Well, my dear fellow, what are you going to do now? I think we can make
certain of this seat down here, if you like to stand."

Miltoun had answered: "Thanks, very much; I don't think so at present."

Through the thin fume of his cigar Lord Valleys watched that long figure
sunk deep in the chair opposite.

"Why not?" he said. "You can't begin too soon; unless you think you
ought to go round the world."

"Before I can become a man of it?"

Lord Valleys gave a rather disconcerted laugh.

"There's nothing in politics you can't pick up as you go along," he
said. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

"You look older." A faint line, as of contemplation, rose between his
eyes. Was it fancy that a little smile was hovering about Miltoun's
lips?

"I've got a foolish theory," came from those lips, "that one must know
the conditions first. I want to give at least five years to that."

Lord Valleys raised his eyebrows. "Waste of time," he said. "You'd know
more at the end of it, if you went into the House at once. You take the
matter too seriously."

"No doubt."

For fully a minute Lord Valleys made no answer; he felt almost ruffled.
Waiting till the sensation had passed, he said: "Well, my dear fellow,
as you please."

Miltoun's apprenticeship to the profession of politics was served in a
slum settlement; on his father's estates; in Chambers at the Temple; in
expeditions to Germany, America, and the British Colonies; in work at
elections; and in two forlorn hopes to capture a constituency which
could be trusted not to change its principles. He read much, slowly, but
with conscientious tenacity, poetry, history, and works on philosophy,
religion, and social matters.

Fiction, and especially foreign fiction, he did not care for. With the
utmost desire to be wide and impartial, he sucked in what ministered
to the wants of his nature, rejecting unconsciously all that by its
unsuitability endangered the flame of his private spirit. What he read,
in fact, served only to strengthen those profounder convictions which
arose from his temperament. With a contempt of the vulgar gew